Saturday, October 15, 2011

Discipleship Roadmap

“..until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and
become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Eph 4:13

Life is like a journey and we are all on it.  Our journey as Christians has a destination, heaven.  However, this journey is unlike other journeys because we don’t prepare to go on the journey.  We prepare while we are on the journey for the journey’s end.  So how do we prepare?  We become disciples.  Why do we need discipleship?  It’s what creates solid Christians.  It’s not enough to be called a disciple.  We need to be a disciple.  Disciples are constantly growing into the likeness of the master.  Jesus taught and showed His disciples how to live.  I believe the church should do the same.  We should encourage each other to follow the great commandment and the great commission. 

Great Commandment
Mark 12:30–31  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these

Great Commission
Matthew 28:18–20  Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

How does the Church help with these?  I’m glad you asked.  That’s been the focus of leadership discussions for months now.  How do we create a Roadmap for Discipleship?  Do you ever wonder how to get “plugged in” at church?  Do you want to help but you’re not sure how to go about it?  Ever think about what it would take to disciple a new believer?  What is the proper output of the church?  These are just a few of the questions the leadership at church are asking themselves in an effort to better understand what a Roadmap for Discipleship should look like for our church. 

Why do we need a Roadmap?  A Roadmap charts possible courses to destination.  It shows certain legs of the journey, stops along the way, and things to avoid. A Roadmap assists you on your way to a destination.  Is it the only way to the destination?  No.  But it’s usually a tried way and it’s a common way for people to rally around.  It gets people headed in the same direction.  And direction is important because it determines outcome.



Second is “Grow” (2 Pet 3:18, Eph 4:15).  We want to help people grow up in maturity as a Christian, in short, to become Christ-like.  This could also be where we help people discover God-given spiritual gifts, talents, and skills.  Help them take inventory of life needs and develop a personal growth plan.   This plan vary from person to person including such items as attending classes on Water Baptism, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Development of Spiritual Gifts, Addiction breaking, Marriage, Parenting, Theology, Bible Study, etc.  The goal is to help them mature in the areas where they feel like they could use help.

Last is “Serve” (1 Pet 4:10, Gal 5:13).  We want to help people understand that mature Christians have an output to their faith.  Christianity is not meant to be an input only proposition.  Serve is where could help people learn about servant-leadership by sharing expectations, values, and characteristics of servant-leaders.  We would teach them to lead by use of spiritual gifts, talents, and skills and to lead by lifestyle of commitment to live like Christ.  We would try to help them find a place to connect and grow in a place of service whether in the church or out in the community as “salt and light.”

We are excited about the Roadmap because it gives us a common vision to rally around.  Something to say when people ask, “So what is your church like?”  You might say, “Well, at our church we  Connect, Grow, and Serve. 

We Connect with each other as the Family of God.  We get Connected with the programs and ministries of the church. We seek to Connect in unity with the other evangelical churches in the area as well.

We Grow in relationship with each other, God and our beliefs.  We Grow in our Christ-likeness. 

And we Serve.  We Serve each other, the community, and the world though the gifts, talents, and strengths God has given us.”

The Roadmap lets us know what we are about and where we are going as a body.  It helps us understand what we are striving for.  It gives us a collective identity in the growing process.  Sometimes maturity can seem elusive.  Kind of like trying to quickly become more patient...but having a Roadmap, a methodology, a pattern to follow helps take some of the elusiveness out of it.  More like spending considerable time praying to be more patient, where you are learning to do it by actually doing it.  The Roadmap gives us some practical steps to follow to become more Christ-like.

We all find ourselves at different levels of Connecting, Growing, and Serving.  In one sense we move from Connect to Grow to Serve, but in another we are always Connnecting, Growing, and Serving. 


References
All Scriptures not otherwise specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.

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